So I played a ZvZ today (no replay sorry, but this doesn't really require a replay...only your mind), and it was pretty much standard/standard on both sides... only something weird happened
I gassed on 14 (because he his pool was late) and the guy uses his scouting drone to plant an evo chamber right next to my extractor...he timed it such I couldn't quite cancel it in time. At first I just thought it would be a proxy time-bomb of sorts for when he attacked or tried a timing...
Then I realized it was far, far more damaging than that. the evo chamber had blocked my drone pathing to the gas such that it would take about 7 drones to actually mine gas efficiently. At the time it didn't make sense for me to abandon it and make a new one of the other side... so I took the gas hit early on...I later lost the game to an absurd amount of banelings that I couldn't roach wall-off on
Now the loss wasn't solely because of this nifty trick he did, but it certainly played a part, and got me thinking about the actual balance issues involved with doing something like this
So my question to you TL, is have you ever faced this unorthodox harassment before, and what have you personally do to counter/avert it.
One thing I do know, is I'm going to try this tactic sometime, it makes use of your scout drone that often dies to lings anyway, and is of relatively minimal cost, especially since the evo chamber spawn broodlings at the end that get at least stop mining for their duration (or kill some drones)
Yes. And what I've done is doing the same to him right away. :D
A counter is simply to cancel your extractor and plant it on the other gaz. If he cancels his evo and plant it near your new extractor, simply continue to cancel it. From what I understand, he timed it perfectly. If the evo is still planted, wait for your queen and lings and block the broodlings, when you destroy the evo, from doing damage to your drones.
The first time, this strategy is very damaging, but when you encounter it once and understand it, you can counter it easily. It's still a nice find.
You can't really get away with it on every map, and sometimes just moving your drones to the other side of the extractor is all you need to minimize the lost mining time.
Aside from that, now that you know about it, you can prevent it. See a drone in your base? Just put one of your own on hold position b/t the geyser and your hatch.
Yeah its not that new, although not many people do it. But be sure when you do it to micro your broodlings manually! i had so many people try this against me, and those few who succeded didnt always mirco them and i could lure them all away with 1 ling (attack priority on zerglings is > than on drones)
Thanks for the comments guys... this is just a play a had yet to see in any level of play (i usually see or at least read of strategies before actually encountering them)
I'm not gonna lie, when it first happened the last thing I thought was it affecting my gas intake. I jsut saw an evo chamber going down and thought about MasterAsia, lol....so I'll be on the lookout to cancel extractors from now on, but this is a nice evolution in ZvZ harassment
Psy had a game where it happened to him, he countered it by doing the same thing back. Seems reasonable really. He cant exploit your lack of gas if he doesnt have gas either.
Place one drone between your geyser and the drone attempting to build the evo chamber, this way he cannot build it next to the extractor, this is how i get around this trick.
TyrianD is spot on. The easiest way to deal with it is noticing that they are going for it and drone blocking (which I have done). I then proceeded to successfuly block his gas. If that doesn't work, just take the other extractor. Even if the first finishes, he is behind 75 minerals which is exactly what it costs to make an extractor and pay for the drone that made it. You lose gas mining time, but it shouldn't matter that much.
If the evo chamber is blocking your drone pathing by that much, all you need to do is take out your drones, manually move them to the other side of the extractor and then put them in again. Here's some screenshots to illustrate.
Blistering sands and Xel'Naga seems to be the worst case of the drone pathing with evo chamber block. This method is tested on all vespene sides. Just take your drones out and make them enter through the other side manually. Gotta remember the evo chamber can only semi block one side.. unless you build your spawning pool and he builds an evo chamber right next to your spawning pool. Which is another point, you should build your spawning pool on the opposite side if you are going to sim city.
As you can see, once you manually enter them to through the other side, they won't take the retarded path. Their pathing might a little bit off but you can still mine efficiently with 3 workers. It won't set you back and if it does, it'll be by a very small margin.
btw, the timebomb aspect of it is not bad, if you micro your broodlings you can kill at least 1 drone, possibly 2, although to even out with how early you sacrifice your econ for this you probably need to kill 3.5 on average, I've stopped doing this because the 125 minerals that early is tremendous and the scouting isn't worthwhile.
The manner evo. It works so much better if you can scare away drones with a couple of banelings and then plant 3 or 4 between the hatchery and the mineral line >.< Larvae get in the way on certain start positions, and you're going to have to rely on mistakes by your opponent, but oh the reward is worth it if you can actually pull it off :-D
I've had this done to me many times.. I usually just let it build and put my gas drones back on minerals and put up an extractor on the other gas. I then transition into more of a defensive eco / spine crawler muta build or w/e I need to do to stop ling / baneling 1 base play.(More crawlers, some banelings myself)
On October 22 2010 21:55 TomTomTom.965 wrote: just place ur pool that way, that he can not build an evo theire
Lol at this
While it's funny the way he said it, you can actually place the pool such that it blocks a bit of the area infront of the gas without affecting pathing I think. For example, the BS picture above if you placed your pool 2 tiles down from where the evo chamber is you could mine perfectly and block the evo chamber. I think, but am not sure, that there's not enough room to move the evo chamber up into the mineral line anymore.
On October 22 2010 21:55 TomTomTom.965 wrote: just place ur pool that way, that he can not build an evo theire
Lol at this
While it's funny the way he said it, you can actually place the pool such that it blocks a bit of the area infront of the gas without affecting pathing I think. For example, the BS picture above if you placed your pool 2 tiles down from where the evo chamber is you could mine perfectly and block the evo chamber. I think, but am not sure, that there's not enough room to move the evo chamber up into the mineral line anymore.
Yup--I was about to try evoing my opponent at his building gas yesterday, only to find that the corner of his spawning pool made it impossible to fit an evo between the gas & hatch. He had built his pool above though, not closer to the mineral line.
I.e.,
G..P <-- the lower left corner of the pool blocks the placement of an evo between the gas & hatch. M....H M .M ...M
Note that the above being ascii art, its not exact. The pool doesn't interfere at ALL with the gas drone pathing. If I'm feeling productive when I get home, I'll find that replay and take a screenshot and post it.
I've tried doing this a few times, and decided it's not worth it. If this is really a problem, what you should do is just have one of your drones follow his as soon as it comes into view. This also helps against 6pool + sunk rushes.
On October 23 2010 00:38 ThE.SparkZ wrote: Just take 3-4 drones to kill it it while its building, it won't take much time and you won't be setting yourself back very much.
Your 3-4 drones will not kill the evo chamber in time before it completes since the evo builds so damn fast.
lowut, i thought this was known for a while now when psy starcraft showed it on his channels in one of his games.
But yea, it's nice if you can pull it off, and the opponent doesn't know how to react, but it sets you back a bit too, (think manner pylon) or pylon blocking hatch. You'll be dow a drone + 75 mierals when you do it, thus delaying your gas + pool.
I've never had a problem with it. A queen and my first two scoutlings easily dispatch the evolution chamber, and as mentioned as long as you place your drones on the correct side of the obstruction, they'll only have a difference of 10-15 gas a minute.
I like it when they put it there. Waste of minerals and their scout... not to mention it gives them this false sense of security thinking they've got you fully scouted when they don't. Can't tell if you're expanding and can't see all the potential spots for the roach warren or baneling nest.
On October 23 2010 04:40 Evark wrote: I've never had a problem with it. A queen and my first two scoutlings easily dispatch the evolution chamber, and as mentioned as long as you place your drones on the correct side of the obstruction, they'll only have a difference of 10-15 gas a minute.
I like it when they put it there. Waste of minerals and their scout... not to mention it gives them this false sense of security thinking they've got you fully scouted when they don't. Can't tell if you're expanding and can't see all the potential spots for the roach warren or baneling nest.
The advantages I see with it:
1. Instead of having your drone scout leave early or die (the only two outcomes typically O_o), it instead "lives on" by morphing into a building
2. extending point #1, after the econ chamber is done, it provides a small radius of sight into the enemies base. While this in itself will typically not tell you what the zergs going in terms of roaches or banelings, but it can tell you if the zerg is going double gas quickly as well as fast lair (though admittedly that doesn't happen often).
3. at the end of it all, you get 6-7 broodlings that could potentially kill a queen in a best case scenario, and stop mining in the worst case
On October 23 2010 00:38 ThE.SparkZ wrote: Just take 3-4 drones to kill it it while its building, it won't take much time and you won't be setting yourself back very much.
Your 3-4 drones will not kill the evo chamber in time before it completes since the evo builds so damn fast.
or he just cancels it and rebuilds/sends his drone home and you wasted mining time.
On October 23 2010 05:55 GaussWaffle wrote: 2. extending point #1, after the econ chamber is done, it provides a small radius of sight into the enemies base. While this in itself will typically not tell you what the zergs going in terms of roaches or banelings, but it can tell you if the zerg is going double gas quickly as well as fast lair (though admittedly that doesn't happen often).
you do get more info than that though. The evo will be right next to his hatch, so you can see what units he spawns from his larva.
Lol I have had this happen to me in ladder once- So i tried build a spinecrawler with my own scouting drone. The thought process was he would be spending all his attention hoping the evo would finish, and I was like "LOLOL you just lost the game"
Obviously no one with decency to look at their map would see it, and obviously this is not the response you want to do.
Basically, consider pulling 1 drone off to chase a scout, if you open hatch gas then it wont be too long until your lings pop and becomes a mute issue. I guess its one of those things that are stupid and seems unfair when it completes, but just some minimal micro management will do you fine. (I guess if you see a drone b-lining for your mineral line you might just have to move a drone in the gas lane so you can block a possible evo)
On October 23 2010 10:14 FabledIntegral wrote: This isn't even remotely new.
I guess trick was the wrong word to use here, I was more or less trying to gauge how people dealt with this situationIN THE PAST, so I can get better by DRAWING FROM THEIR NOT NEW EXPERIENCES
but, it's not even remotely new, so lets just leave it at that
EPT
(attack priority on zerglings is > than on drones)![[image loading]](http://imgur.com/o6gio.jpg)
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